


Push and Pull

by akissmar



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Added tag: Maybe more spirituality study than bending study, Angst, Bending study (is that a thing?), Character Study, Kissing and making out (a little), M/M, Some dark themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-03
Updated: 2020-09-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:41:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26195794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akissmar/pseuds/akissmar
Summary: The moon is staring down at him, silently, but Kaji can feel the judgement in his soul more painfully than anything else. His sins might be the only thing left in him, now that everything else is gone.“What,” he murmurs, voice somehow stable despite everything. “What do you want from me? You’re not a part of me anymore.”The moon, ever silent, doesn’t answer, of course. He wonders if the girl who sacrificed herself for its life years ago has her eyes on him now. If she’s as sad as he doesn’t want to admit.Kaji wonders if having his bending taken away really brought him the peace he sought.
Relationships: Amon (Avatar)/Original Male Character(s)
Kudos: 8





	Push and Pull

**Author's Note:**

> Context: Kaji approached Amon after a rally to have his bending taken away and realised that Amon is a waterbender. He confronted him, they hooked up in the heat of it all and this fic is set a few hours later. Kaji has a tragic backstory™ that made him hate his bending, mostly because he inherited it from his father who left his Mom while she was pregnant.  
> I rewatched LOK in March when the whole Covid-19 and quarantine situation started and somehow became incredibly horny for Amon – which hasn’t really happened any of the other times I watched the series before?! I always was more of a simp for the main four. Welp. Anyways, what else to do but insert my best boy Kaji into this mess?  
> 

Push and Pull.

Sea and Moon.

Life and Death.

Those words have lost their meaning years ago.

The only connotation they evoke is a bitter taste in Kaji’s mouth, a reminder of the man that could have, _should have_ been there for him.

Waves crushing into the shore, pulling away just to come back with full force, perpetually trapped in this cycle.

Kaji sits by the beach, staring into the murky water, eyes empty like his soul seems to be.

He’s never felt better in his life.

Never felt worse.

Fingers dig into cold, damp sand.

He feels the urge to undo the lacing of his boots and trot along the crashing waves, let the water rinse over his feet. But he’s not six anymore, not holding the hand of his mother, and even the simplest of childish joys that he could experience by himself, in secrecy, alone, have lost their appeal to him.

His fist closes around the sand and he throws it into the waves, thoughtless, not even angry or sad. It just felt like something he should do. Grains of sand beneath his fingernails. He just stares at the chapped, black nail polish that he can’t make out in the dim moonlight and whatever is reaching him from the city behind him.

It doesn’t matter.

He just drops his hand to let his fingers run through the sand again.

Looks up at the moon.

It might have once evoked something in him, something like awe and belonging, but now he just feels his eyebrows draw together in confusion. His fingers curling into a fist again. He doesn’t understand.

This is what he wanted.

The peace he longed for, the quiet, the freedom.

And he’s not unhappy.

Or is he?

No, he’s definitely not unhappy. He knows how unhappy feels. How it feels to say, ‘I’m fine’ when what you actually mean is ‘Help me’.

But is he happy, then?

His thoughts stay silent, not able to settle on a satisfying answer, and he has to drop his gaze, turn his face to the ground, just so the tears won’t flow out while he stares into the sky.

He hears the waves.

But he doesn’t _hear_ them. Not like before.

Before, he could hear them everywhere. Somehow. Or maybe hear is the wrong word, though feeling them doesn’t seem right either. They were a part of him. Crashing in, pulling back, crashing in, pulling back, rinse and repeat. The waves resided in his soul. In his core. Representing the power of the moon that fuelled him.

What’s fuelling him now but spite?

He can walk this world without this inheritance. Without this connection to ancestors he doesn’t care about. To spirits that he always felt betrayed by.

And yet, when he looks up again, there are tears flowing out of his eyes, bitterly and unwanted.

The moon is staring down at him, silently, but Kaji can feel the judgement in his soul more painfully than anything else. His sins might be the only thing left in him, now that everything else is gone.

“What,” he murmurs, voice somehow stable despite everything. “What do you want from me? You’re not a part of me anymore.”

The moon, ever silent, doesn’t answer, of course. He wonders if the girl who sacrificed herself for its life years ago has her eyes on him now. If she’s as sad as he doesn’t want to admit.

He can’t bear the thought of it and buries his face in his arms, shielding himself from every light, and begins to sob.

He doesn’t even care about the presence he starts to feel behind him, announcing itself by non-muted footsteps on the sand. How considerate.

Kaji doesn’t even begin to wonder how in the world he found him here.

“How does it feel?”

“Fuck off.”

Two barely threatening words at best and almost pitiful sounding with his snot-clogged voice.

“I’m just curious.”

“And I’m telling you to _fuck off_.”

Amon doesn’t listen, why should he, after all, and Kaji raises his head from his arms, not bothering to wipe anything off his face as he turns his head to glare daggers at the other man.

He’s not wearing his mask. Not even wearing his uniform. He still has a hood on, though he’s pulling it off his head as he sits down next to Kaji. No fake scar and make up adorning his face. Kaji almost doesn’t recognise it as the same from before. Like this, his features are so unmistakably water-tribe-ish, it makes Kaji even angrier, somehow.

Amon, of course, notices his seething immediately, looking at him curiously.

But he doesn’t ask.

So Kaji doesn’t answer.

Keeps the anger inside him.

He just turns back to the sea, even when he feels Amon’s continued staring.

“Incomplete,” he says, finally, unprompted.

Amon hums and finally adverts his gaze, looking up to the moon.

“But you felt like this before,” he says, and Kaji rises his chin from where he let it rest on top of his knees to look back at Amon.

_The audacity-_

He swallows hard.

“Different,” Kaji offers. “A different kind of incomplete.”

Amon meets his eyes.

Kaji thinks of his mother. How she killed herself after she couldn’t bear the pain anymore. Thinks of his father, possibly still living, somewhere, maybe or maybe not wondering about the son he left behind. Thinks of his uncle, always there for him, patient and loving. It could have hit him worse. He could have ended up on the streets, with no one to take care of him, no one to love him, all alone. It just makes him feel even more guilty for feeling this miserable.

He's not one to look at the past. To hold grudges. He’s picked himself up again and again and this time around it’ll be just the same. He’ll walk towards the future on this path he paved for himself and, eventually, he’ll learn to live with it. With the hole inside him. And Amon will be shoved back into the tiniest corner of his mind, along with everyone else he couldn’t, _shouldn't_ care less about.

But tonight-

Tonight, the moon is weeping for him, _for them_ , and he can’t help but feel this longing in the dark pits of his stomach when he looks into Amon’s steel blue eyes, almost grey the way they are illuminated by the moonlight.

As if controlled, they move at the same time, clinging to each other, lips crashing together, mouths opening and fingers wandering, moans and gasps muffled in their haste.

“I hate you,” Kaji says in-between their desperate kissing. The steam of their breaths one single cloud between their faces.

“I know.” Fingers tracing long-healed scars on Kaji’s ribs, hand warmed up and hot against Kaji’s skin. “How couldn’t you?”

“I still don’t think I hate you as much as you hate yourself.”

Amon’s breath hitches a little, but his face doesn’t betray him. Without the mask he’s even faker than with it, Kaji thinks.

Instead of replying, he just kisses Kaji again.

But that’s enough of an answer for him.

He might not ever feel the push and pull inside of him again, but at least he knows that he will be the only person who’ll ever witness whatever tiny bit Amon hasn’t sold of his soul.


End file.
